


Laugh at the Moon

by Vagrant_Blvrd



Series: Among the Stars [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-11 22:47:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29750160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vagrant_Blvrd/pseuds/Vagrant_Blvrd
Summary: It’s a tip from Paz of all people that leads Din to a small moon orbiting a tidal planet and the Imperial base dug into the rocky cliffs there.
Relationships: Din Djarin/Luke Skywalker
Series: Among the Stars [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2199561
Comments: 22
Kudos: 144





	Laugh at the Moon

**Author's Note:**

> Quick fic-thing from that [space werewolves AU](https://vagrantblvrd.tumblr.com/tagged/space-werewolves) not!fic.

It’s a tip from Paz of all people that leads Din to a small moon orbiting a tidal planet and the Imperial base dug into the rocky cliffs there.

Virtually impassible on foot, only way to reach it by air and there are too many automated anti-air emplacements for him to take out before they’d manage to shoot him down.

Fortunate for him, then, that said emplacements aren’t configured to account for a man with a jetpack.

He’s greeted with a contingent of stormtroopers when he drops onto the landing pad, but the glory of the Empire has since long faded. These troopers in their dirty, ill-kept armor and sloppy habits are easy to handle. Din doesn’t even have to use the spear on his back or the Darksaber at his hip.

Something odd about the fight sticks in his mind as he moves forward. Their surprise at seeing him, as if they hadn’t known he was there at all. Didn’t see him on their security feeds despite his arrival on the landing pad being far from subtle.

========

Din doesn’t meet with further opposition as he explores the base which is...worrying.

Especially as he moves closer to the labs and comes across signs he’s not the only hostile visitor to walk its corridors recently.

Something’s wrong with the power in the lower levels, emergency lighting flickering and patches of darkness where anyone, anything, could be waiting. Alarm klaxons go unanswered.

The light on his helmet cuts through the darkness like a blade, illuminates one grisly sight after another.

Bodies surrounded in pools of their own blood, long dried. Weapons just out of reach of grasping hands. 

Din crouches beside a body, armor cracked wide open in places and what looks like bite marks low on one leg. Bite marks that pierced the armor through, left jagged holes and what he’s sure is a broken leg under the armor.

It looks like someone made an attempt at clearing the bodies, signs of something being dragged away before they stopped, work unfinished.

It’s unsettling, and Din wonders where Paz heard of this place. If he knew what the Imperials were up to here, if Din should have accepted his offer of help rather than come here on his own.

========

There’s an energy barrier between Din and the sealed door of the labs.

Something’s trapped inside.

Big, definitely not humanoid.

An animal of some kind, low rumbling growl bouncing against the walls. Click of its nails on the smooth floors as it paces restlessly, keeping to the shadows where Din can’t see it clearly.

When he moves closer the growl sharpens, moves from frustration to a warning. Hears it moving closer, something off about its gait. 

Uneven. 

Wounded, perhaps.

It certainly wouldn’t be surprising after what Din had seen on his way to the labs. Tight quarters and energy weapons against fangs and claws and whatever else natural defenses the creature must have. 

A clatter comes from Din’s left, and when he looks that direction he gets his first good look at what the Imperials managed to trap. 

Tawny fur. Big, as he suspected. Looks like a Loth-wolf, the images he remembers seeing as a child, something out of a bedtime story.

Bloodied muzzle, more down its neck and chest. Dried patches on its flanks and favoring one leg.

There’s a gleam of metal around its neck, buzz of electricity and smell of singed fur.

Intelligent blue eyes narrowed at him, long fangs bared in warning. 

“Hey,” Din says, voice soft. “Hey. Easy, there.”

The wolf snaps at him, but shows no other signs of hostility towards him.

Din watches it for a long moment, unsure how to proceed. 

No guarantee it won’t attack him the moment he drops the barrier, and while his beskar is more durable than stormtrooper armor, there are gaps in it the creature might be able to take advantage of. No telling what kind of bite pressure it has, if it can crack trooper armor open.

“Well,” Din says. “This is quite the situation, isn’t it.”

The wolf cocks its head, ears pricking forward. It isn’t growling anymore.

Din tilts his head, considering.

Remembers Kuiil, the blurrg.

Looks at the wolf in front of him. 

He has dried meat in a pouch on his belt, a small canteen of water.

Din sighs.

“Why not?” he asks himself and does his best to make friends with an overgrown wolf that could easily kill him because it’s just his luck to run into something like this. “I’m sure everything will go just fine.”

========

There are fangs at Din’s throat, a wide, heavy paw on his chest pinning him down, and the Darksaber in his hand.

A warning growl, pressure against his throat and -

Din sighs as he thumbs the activation button of the Darksaber and the blade retracts with a hiss. Din goes limp, unresisting.

The wolf had charged him the moment he dropped the barrier, all that time Din spent talking to it to calm it before he had seemingly wasted. Had just enough time to reach for the Darksaber before it hits him, flash of its eyes and gleam of its fangs and the floor at his back.

It could have killed him. Ripped out his throat or snapped his neck, and yet it didn’t. 

Hasn’t.

Snarled at the sight of the Darksaber’s blade, but it hadn’t flinched when he brought it to the wolf’s neck.

They stay like that for a few moments before the wolf snorts. Din feels the hot rush of its breath against his throat, and then the fangs are gone along with the weight on his chest.

Slowly, carefully, Din sits up, wary of startling the wolf.

It’s watching him again, head tipped to the side as though it doesn’t know what to make of him.

Din returns its regard, and then his eyes drop to the collar around his neck.

Big, ugly thing.

Modified shock collar, or something built along the same lines. Bare metal and thick wires and the fur under it looks -

The wolf snarls, ears going back, like it can sense where his attention is focused.

“Whoa, whoa,” Din says, hands held up in front of him. “I’m not your enemy.”

It should feel ridiculous to be talking to the wolf as though it can understand him, but. Well. Din’s run into weirder things in his life, and he’s not going to take the chance it doesn’t understand him.

Whether it understands him or not, it stops growling. Gives him a curious look, ears flicking forward and back.

A minute, two, of that and Din thinks it knows he’s not a danger to it. Probably.

“Good talk,” Din says, and walks over to examine the door panel to the labs.

========

The lab is a disaster.

More bodies, blood. Fresh this time, only a few hours old if anything.

It occurs to Din that the wolf must have gotten in here too, before being lured back outside where the troopers managed to contain it.

The wolf surveys the devastation with cool eyes and levels Din with a look, as if he has room to judge with the things he’s done in his life.

“Nice work,” he says, moving towards a computer terminal.

Din feels the corner of his mouth twitch as the wolf snorts, fang showing in a grin as it trails behind him.

=======

He doesn’t find much of use in the lab or its computers. Seems like someone did their best to wipe the entire system not too long ago, panicked, messy.

There are notes about the wolf, however.

Its sudden appearance several days prior. Ruthless slaughter of the troopers attempting to stop it before they captured it. 

The first time.

Din finds himself looking at the wolf who looks back, unnaturally calm.

========

Din finds tools in the lab, and the wolf holds still as he removes the collar from around its neck.

Blue, blue eyes on him, and then it lifts its neck in a show of breathtaking trust to allow him better access to the collar.

The wolf allows him to treat its leg, bares its teeth when he unintentionally causes hurt, but doesn’t snap, doesn’t bite.

========

The wolf breaks off from him when they reach an intersection near the entrance to the base. 

Din follows it to a small room. 

It lets out a bark, paws scrabbling at what seems to be a storage compartment.

Curious, Din goes over to see what caught its attention. 

The wolf moves aside for him, and when Din opens the compartment is met with a bundle of dark clothes and what looks like the hilt of a blade like the Darksaber.

“Huh,” Din says, not sure what to make of this discovery.

Possibly the possessions of the wolf’s master? Companion? And with no sign of them around save for their belongings, Din suspects the Imperials may have been the death of them.

He hooks the laser sword hilt to his belt beside the Darksaber and carries the bundle of clothes under his arm. 

========

He expects the wolf to run the moment they’re outside on the landing pad, disappear into the woods surrounding the base.

It’s not wearing the shock collar anymore, and while it still has a limp, that should go away in a day or two thanks to the bacta he found. No reason for him to worry over it.

“What?” Din asks, faced with large, rangy wolf with the bluest eyes he’s ever seen giving him an expectant look. “I’m not taking you with me.”

The wolf snorts and treats him to another toothy grin as if it knows better than he does what a lie sounds like coming from him.

========

Din takes one of the shuttles, pointedly ignoring the wolf watching everything with interest beside him.

========

There’s a moment when Grogu appears at the top of his ship’s landing ramp that Din realizes he failed to account for this. For Grogu being impatient for his return, eager to see him again. To come out to greet him rather than wait for Din to meet him.

The wolf goes stock-still, ears pricked forward, a slight tremor going through it.

“Oh, hell,” Din says, and lunges for the wolf too late to grab it as it bounds forward, injured leg forgotten. “No, bad!”

The wolf ignores him and Din draws his blaster, heart in his throat - 

And stops dead when he hears Grogu’s voice lifted in laughter rather than a cry for help.

The wolf it sitting on its haunches in front of Grogu, nose touching his small chest and Grogu’s small hands patting its face.

The wolf’s tail thumps against the landing ramp, and when Din holsters his blaster and approaches, looks back at him with another of those toothy grins.

========

Getting back to Mandalore is quite the feat.

Between running into Imperials and other threats along the way Din realizes the wolf has taken quite the shine to Grogu.

Fierce, merciless, to anyone who poses a threat to the kid, and clearly wrapped around the kid’s little finger the same as Din.

========

“What the hell is that?” Cara asks, eyes locked on the wolf and its tiny passenger when Din stops on Nevarro to refuel. 

Din follows her gaze.

Big, rangy wolf with tawny fur, and Grogu on its back like something out of a bedtime story. Brave knights and noble steeds and honestly, Din doesn’t really know what he’s looking at either.

“That’s my _kid_ , Dune,” he says, and laughs at the glare she gives him.

========

The Armorer watches Grogu and the wolf for a long moment, head tilted.

“Interesting,” she says eventually. 

Behind her Paz shifts his weight, head turning to track Grogu stalking the wolf, hunter and prey.

“Does it have a name?”

Grogu lets out a squeal, his little battle cry, and pounces on the wolf’s tail. It goes down like it’s been shot through the heart, careful not to hurt Grogu in its death throes.

“...Cabur,” Din says after a moment, thinking of the way the wolf puts itself between Grogu and danger without a second thought. 

Paz’s head comes around to stare at him, and the Armorer hums.

“Interesting,” she says again, sounding amused. 

========

“You know,” Paz says later. “The New Republic’s all stirred up about something. Some senator’s brother going missing.”

Din glances at Paz, who’s watching the wolf snapping at the spear the Armorer is using to fend it off as they...spar.

There are foundlings gathered around them to watch, little Grogu among them.

It’s not the strangest thing Din’s seen in his life, but it comes close.

“And?” Din asks, as if he doesn’t know where this line of discussion is headed.

Paz shrugs, tilts his head just so.

“Seems like something the Mand’alor should be aware of, if he’s going to go through with talks about joining the New Republic.”

========

Senator Organa is certainly a force to be reckoned with. Sharp eyes and honeyed voice, and he’s not sure he likes the smile that crosses her face when she sees the wolf.

“I see,” she says, seemingly to herself. The hard set to her mouth softening. Her eyes flick to Din, and then she says, inexplicably, “I don’t blame you, actually.”

The wolf this time.

She’s addressing the _wolf_.

========

“Oh,” Din says, belated realization and what’s sure to be shock setting in. “You know this isn’t the strangest thing I’ve seen?”

There are hands on his side trying to stem the bleeding and a voice ordering him to stay with him. A handsome face and the bluest eyes he’s ever seen and a dead assassin on the floor behind them.

A wolf that isn’t, and a man who looks at him like he’s important for reasons that don’t have to do with his abilities and skills or the Darksaber at his hip.

========

“Luke,” the wolf that isn’t says later, voice soft and the bluest eyes Din’s ever seen avoiding his. “My name is Luke.”

========

“It’s genetic,” Luke says, much, much later. Another planet and another assassination attempt. There’s a dark-furred wolf leaping for the throat of one of the assassins as they watch the security feed. “Our father’s side.”

And to think Din assumed the references the two of them made before were in regards to their Jedi sorcery.

“It's still not the strangest thing I’ve seen,” Din says, and he smiles when Luke laughs.

**Author's Note:**

>  _Cabur_ is Mando'a for protector or guardian.


End file.
